Business News Americas | February 17, 2011 | Patrick Nixon
French telecoms equipment supplier Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) believes its upcoming LightRadio antenna technology is well suited for helping to address the principal challenges faced by Latin American mobile operators, Alcatel-Lucent’s president for Latin America, Osvaldo Di Campli, told BNamericas.
“In emerging markets, due to their architecture and size, we are attacking the most important challenges in Latin America, which are space, energy consumption and the capacity to reduce operational costs. Those are key elements that mean our technology can really help increase the concept of mobile broadband, which we’re going to see growing in the region,” Di Campli said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Di Campli said the small size of the new antenna technology will also help avoid Nimby-related (“not in my back yard”) conflicts frequently seen in communities in Latin America where operators have to install new base stations.
The executive said LightRadio marks a paradigm shift in the way wireless networks are designed and implemented.
Operators that win licenses for 4G spectrum in Latin America and will have to invest in infrastructure anyway are likely to adopt LightRadio, he added. “In countries in Latin America that have already awarded 4G spectrum, those operators are most likely going to be the first to implement these types of networks.”
Alcatel-Lucent announced the development of LightRadio last week. The first product release is due to be ready for trials in September this year.
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